Free Falling
by Ssergit
Summary: Response to a fiction challenge. Some of our friends from CSI are trapped in elevators with each other, and have to deal with the consequences. G&S post Butterflied tensions. UNCOMPLETE INDEFINITELY
1. Chapter One

**Eurydice1980** posted this challenge at Under the Bridge, and I just wub challenges...

  
|We're in a building with many elevators and of course there is a problem.  
People are stuck in their elevators.  
In one elevator is Brass with only one other person: A pretty woman, who thinks he met before, but cannot remember. He is attracted to her and it turns out to be Lady Heather wearing a ponytail, normal clothes and subtle make-up, No Whip to be around, looking like a normal person... Feel the awkwardness, hihi!   
  
In another elevator we have Grissom and Sara, feeling very uncomfortable in each other presence (because it's after Butterflied, don't know what to do about 'this'), and to make things worse Hodges is stuck with them.  
  
And in the next elevator we've got Nick, who is freaking out.  
And Catherine and Warrick are trying to calm him down.|

a/n: As timelines go, this one's variable--one would assume that trouble with elevators would all happen at once, so imagine that each respective group is either 5 minutes or so before or after one another.

Chapter One:

**County**** **Courts****** **Building******:**

What a DAY. They all hated celebrity cases, and today's marathon court testimonies had made it easy to see why. The case had involved an A-list actor whose family had mysteriously been murdered in their hotel room while he was 'out' golfing with the hotel owner. Except that his fingerprints were at the scene, in his daughter's blood, along with those of his so-called alibi. It turned out that the sleazy hotel owner had needed the publicity the crime generated, while the actor hadn't wanted the burden of his children or the prospect of a messy divorce. Of course, proving it was another matter entirely. The top name lawyers that had been hired to protect the heartless man had subpoenaed every single person that had worked on the case, just about. One by one, the attorneys had tried to rip apart their evidence, questioning everything they did. At the end of the day, all any of them wanted to do was sleep. Director Carvallo had arranged a cover crew for all the night shift employees required to testify, explaining to them that a good night's sleep would help their case more than testifying all day, and working all night. Particularly since they weren't all finished in court yet.

Lieutenant Jim Brass was looking forward to a good nights' sleep. So much so, that he got started on it a little early. The 'ding' of an elevator's arrival woke him from his doze, and for a long minute he was confused as to where he was. A quick check of his surroundings told him that he'd fallen asleep in the waiting area outside the courtroom. The court building was several stories high, and the view it accorded of the setting sun was fairly impressive. The doorway was in such a position that he could see a faint reflection of the goings on in the hallway, and he could see Grissom, Hodges, and Sara enter one of the open elevator cars. Brass chuckled. He wasn't sure which of them to feel more sorry for—Grissom, for having to deal with Hodges' inevitable attempt at brown-nosing; Hodges, when Grissom inevitably put him in his place; or Sara, for having to witness both. He took one more look at the breathtaking sunset, and started for the hallway. As sleepy as he was, his bed was imminently preferable to the waiting room's sparse accommodations.

**Elevator #4:**

Catherine rubbed her arms to warm them. Even with long sleeves, the elevator seemed pretty cold. It had been a long day for her—nearly 30 hours. She'd worked the night before, and hadn't had much time to do more than change into a nice outfit for court after the shift was over. She was glad her sister was able to take care of Lindsay tonight, because she doubted she'd be able to do much of anything but sleep. The thought made her picture her nice warm bed, and she yawned.

Nick yawned. He'd considered watching the football game he'd taped between his college team and Notre Dame, but the thought of a good nights' sleep drove any desire for sports watching to the back burner.

Warrick yawned.

Catherine yawned again.

Nick started to yawn, when Warrick punched his shoulder.

"Quit that! You'll get me started again," the tall CSI complained.

"Me?" Nick protested. "You started it!"

"Oh, I don't think so, Sir Yawns-A-Lot," Warrick teased.

"'Sir'-" Nick was cut off by Catherine before he had to think up a comeback.

"Oh, both of you stop," Catherine said, wearily. "I started it."

"See?" Nick started again, vindicated. "I-what was that?"

"I felt it too," Warrick said.

"It's probably nothing," Catherine assured them, "just a kink in the lifting mechanism."

"We're going _down, Cath." Warrick objected._

**Elevator #1:**

"…and that's why I was able to keep my cool on the stand up there," Hodges was saying. He'd been going on and on about how Grissom's teaching him about the importance of the chain of evidence had been what gave him strength in his testimony today. The only thing keeping Sara sane was the fact that the last time the elevator stopped, the door had opened and the woman waiting had taken one look at Hodges and changed her mind about taking the elevator. At least, that's what Sara assumed had been the reason for her decision.

Sara was impressed with the woman's wisdom.

She wished she'd made the same choice.

Then again, Sara would have taken one look at _Grissom_ and chose to take the stairs. All 19 flights of them. Gladly.

It drove her CRAZY that the man could say those things about her ('_they were about me, I know_ they were about me_,' her thoughts screamed at her before she could let that dreadful doubt creep in again) and have it not make one __iota of difference in how he treated her. If anything, it had cause him to retreat even farther ('_I didn't think that could be possible!_' she thought, angrily) than before. Two full weeks had passed, and this very elevator ride was the closest they'd been since that night. Sara sighed, causing Grissom to glance over at her quickly. Grissom had to admit, she looked pretty miserable, but then again--who wouldn't be, with this guy yammering on about how he had 'saved the case'._

**Elevator #4:**

"We're going down!?" Nick asked in a panic, frantically holding onto the handrails as if clutching them would be the last desperate act of his life.

"Whoa, Nick!" Catherine said, reaching out a hand to steady her friend's shaking shoulders. "It's not as if we're in a plane," she joked, trying to lighten his mood. As she spoke, the elevator paused in its descent, making a very audible sound of distressed metal.

"Plane, elevator--they both have the same result!" Nick said in a high pitched tone, attempting to reach the emergency phone while still grasping the handrail. Warrick noticed his intent, and moved to stand in front of the panel that held the phone, inwardly laughing at Nick's worry. He stopped laughing a minute later when the dizzying sense of having the floor you're standing on drop out from under you made him question whether or not Nick had been right. The odd feeling made him lose his balance, and he fell backwards onto the control panel for the elevator. He felt an awful pain in his back, and then fell forward into Catherine's arms.

**Meanwhile, waiting for an elevator:**

Brass looked at his watch. He told himself, for the fifth time, that he should have run for the elevator that Grissom, Sara, and (gulp) Hodges had taken, and just dealt with it. Anything was better than having to wait forever for the next elevator. He had almost prepared himself for the ordeal of 19 flights of stairs, when the blessed *ding* told him his ride had finally come. Rushing into the elevator, he nearly ran into an attractive, black haired woman. Brass excused himself politely, and made sure 'Lobby' was pressed.

He felt like he was being watched. Glancing over at the woman, he immediately realized two things. One, she was watching him. Two, she wasn't merely attractive, she was _gorgeous! He could feel the heat around his collar as he began to blush, and then realized he'd been staring right back at her. The blush rose, and he nodded at her in way of a greeting, and turned his face away so that she couldn't watch the progress of red marching up his face. Something about her tugged at his senses, and it wasn't just his masculine response to her. She looked familiar._

**Elevator #1:**

"Whoa," Sara said. The elevator had stopped, but it wasn't the recognizable, slow easing to a stop that she had expected. She could almost feel the car jerk on the pulley strings. Sara shot a look around the tight space, registering that Grissom had felt it too, and Hodges had not. In fact, the odious man was glaring at her as if she'd made up some disturbance in order to shut him up. Little did he know, she would have--if it had been possible.

Hodges opened his mouth to continue his self-centered account of the entire trial proceedings, when a second, more pronounced jerk of movement gave way to a short free-fall. Reflexively, Grissom lunged toward Sara, pinning her between his arms as he held onto the railing that was bolted to the wall. Neither of them cared much about (or even noticed, for that matter) what Hodges was doing.

TBC...

a/n: do tell me if the bold location notifications are annoying, and I'll edit them out.


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two:

a/n: A funny thing sometimes happens to me when I've typed and read a word many times in a day--right now 'elevator' is like the funniest word in the world...

**Elevator #2:**

"You are a policeman." The dark-haired woman spoke with such assurance, that she surprised him enough to answer her without thinking.

"Yes--is it that obvious?" Brass had forgotten his discomfort, at the sound of her voice. It was melodious, he thought, and it was a testament to just how much she had affected him that he didn't even make fun of himself for using the term 'melodious.'

"You hold yourself like one," she answered.

"I see." He decided that he really wanted her to elaborate, and asked her to. "How is that?" She smiled, and he once again felt recognition. Something inside him hoped that he had not met her through his job, but considering the extent of his 'social life,' there wasn't much hope of that. Brass allowed himself to watch her as she answered him.

"With wearied confidence."

"That sounds about right," he laughed weakly.

**Elevator #4:**

It was just as well that the elevator car had stopped moving, Catherine thought to herself, because the last thing she needed was two manly wrecks. Warrick was apologizing up and down for having nearly knocked her flat, and his struggles to remove himself from her support were failing due to the grimaces of pain he made with each attempt.

"Warrick, man--stay still!" Nick helped Catherine maneuver him up against the wall of the small room, looking worried all the while.

"I'm fine, really!" the tall man protested.

"Oh?" Catherine said with a big grin. "So you were what? Trying to jump me with Nick in the room? Not a smart move," she teased.

Warrick blushed so red that it was evident even through his chocolate brown skin, and it only got worse.

"Yeah, if you were gonna make a move, you should have told me!" Nick laughed.

"I-I..." Warrick just gave up.

"Ok, let me take a look at this," Catherine said, suddenly all business. She lifted Warrick's shirt to discover a nasty looking bruise already beginning to form on his back. "It's bruising already, but I think you'll survive," she said reassuringly.

"The same might not be said of the emergency phone," Nick groaned. The impact had crushed the receiver back into the panel, and when he'd lifted it to his ear, there was no dial tone.

**Elevator #1:**

The silence in the small space was palpable. Completely oblivious to Hodges' presence, Sara and Grissom remained as they had been before the free fall had ended. He seemed unable to move, and she didn't want to. '_Just a few seconds longer,_' she thought to herself. '_Just to savor the moment.' It was indeed a moment to savor--she was clutching his shirt collar, her face buried in his neck, his arms encircling her in his protection._

"Shall I leave you two alone?" The dry, sarcastic voice of the trace lab tech echoed in the tiny compartment. "Oh wait, I can't."

Grissom wanted to punch him.

Sara wanted to, also.

Somehow, they managed to restrain the urge.

Grissom stepped back, trying to hold back his desire to look at her face, and succeeding. Sara released her death grip on his shirt, and busied herself with smoothing nonexistent wrinkles from her clothing. She managed to avoid looking at Grissom's face, and looked at Hodges' instead. He was smirking at her, a knowing look in his eyes.

"Sarcasm is the last defense of the weak minded, did you know that?" She said. Sara knew it was petty, but she had no greater desire at this point than to wipe that nasty grin off of his face. Well... _almost_ no greater desire.

**Elevator #2:**

Brass studied the woman surreptitiously. There wasn't anything remarkable about her clothing--just a pair of tight-fitting jeans and a flattering shirt--but there _was something remarkable about the way she carried herself. If he'd believed in past lives, something he joked about sometimes, he would have said she was a queen in one of hers._

"Do I pass?"

She must have noticed his inspection. Jim groaned inwardly--the last thing he wanted to do was give her the impression that he was some lewd stranger...

"You don't have to feel uncomfortable, you know." She walked over to stand in front of him, her long ponytail swaying with the graceful movement. "I'm used to it," she said, looking into his eyes. There was no way Brass could hold that direct gaze, and he dropped his gaze.

"Used to what," he said in a low voice, knowing what her answer would be. _"I'm used to freaks like you checking me out," he expected to hear._

"I'm used to being noticed," she said, surprising him.

"You're very... noticeable," he said, and made a face. '_What was THAT?' he asked himself. He risked a look at her face, and saw that, instead of being offended, she'd simply raised an eyebrow at his comment. "You're beautiful, I meant to say," he managed. What __planet was he on that he actually had the courage to come right out and say that? The policeman wasn't sure, but he liked it, anyway._

**Elevator #4:**

Catherine looked around to take stock of the situation. Warrick seemed fine, despite the ugly purple bruise forming on his back, but Nick--Nick seemed to be right on the knife edge of freaking out. She wondered if he could possibly be claustrophobic.

Nick supposed it could be worse. After all, his friend was hurt, the phone line for emergencies (and he was certain that this state of affairs would count as one) was out, he was on the verge of hyperventilating--but at least there was no elevator music.

Warrick was just thankful that he'd not hurt Catherine when the elevator had jerked to a stop. The thought reminded him that he was just thankful that the elevator stopped at all. His back hurt pretty badly, but he supposed that it would pass--and there were worse people to be stuck in an elevator with.

**Elevator #1:**

"My, my--somebody's feeling catty today," Hodges observed, stepping up his nasty grin a tad. Sara could have gleefully shoved him out the elevator door, if only she could be certain it would open out on empty space.

"Did it ever occur to you, Hodges," Grissom was saying, "that it might be prudent to be more polite, given the circumstances? We have no idea how long we'll be stuck here, after all." He absolutely _hated to pander to the brown-nosed attitude the other man had regarding him, but he also didn't want to be trapped in there with his two companions at each other's throats. Hodges opened his mouth as if to say something, and at that moment, the elevator creaked slightly. He shut his mouth immediately, taking the noise as a sign that talking back to the boss would be a bad idea._

**Elevator #4:**

"Well, that's just great." Nick's tone implied that 'great' was _exactly the opposite of his opinion of their predicament. He slumped to a heap on the floor, his long legs splaying out in front of him. "No emergency phone--no way to find out what's going on..." His voice got steadily higher as he recapped their problems unnecessarily to his co-workers. Catherine was sympathetic and all, but she had had about enough of his nervous chatter._

"Nick--look," she began, about to give him a severe dressing-down for annoying her, but something made her stop. She looked at him, really looked into his eyes, and saw abject terror. He was truly frightened out of his mind. Catherine scooted over to him on the floor and took his hand.

"Nicky, we'll be ok--you know that, right?" For a moment, he didn't acknowledge her question, and she could see that he was fighting his emotions. Finally he turned his head away from her, and whispered something.

"No, I don't."

**Elevator #2:**

Before the lovely woman in front of him had a chance to slap him for his audacity, the elevator car they were riding in lurched to a stop, and on instinct he reached out to steady her. His hand slipped on the silky surface of her blouse, and when the car slipped into free fall a moment later, the tenuous grasp turned into a full fledged embrace, albeit by accident. Strangely, she seemed to not fear the impending doom of being crushed to pieces upon reaching the basement, and her serenity calmed him of any fear he might have had. 

They seemed to fall forever, when in reality it couldn't have been more than a minute in length. Time seemed to have slowed, giving him a chance to absorb fully all the input his senses were sending him. The soft brush of her ponytail on his face, her breath on his neck, the sexy silk fabric of her shirt. He could barely breathe for fear that it was all a dream--a crazy imagining in the last minutes of his life.

He was wrong, though.

The elevator stopped again, with a sickening halt that caused his center of gravity to shift off kilter. They stumbled together for a second, and ended up in the corner of the elevator, the mysterious dark haired woman neatly pinning him there with one hand on either side of his body.

"I _must be dreaming," Jim Brass said, rolling his eyes heavenward._

TBC...


	3. Chapter Three

Chapter Three:

**Elevator #1:**

"What just happened?" Sara asked, fearing to move in case the elevator might be holding on by mere threads.

"Well, I just told Hodges-" Grissom started.

"No, Griss," Sara would have laughed, but even her severe dislike of the lab tech couldn't overcome her sense of propriety. "What happened to the elevator car?"

"It-" Hodges started to speak, and then stopped as though one of his companions would be opposed to his input.

"Go on," Grissom encouraged him.

"It sounded like the hydraulic system could be malfunctioning," he said, tentatively. When neither Grissom nor Sara objected to his suggestion, he elaborated. "The kind of elevator used in this size building is most likely a roped hydraulic--the lift is controlled by both a hydraulic system, and a collection of pulleys. The cables keep the car aloft should there be a problem with the lifting mechanism." His professional sounding explanation put them all at ease, until- "Unless I'm wrong, of course."

"You had to add that," Grissom groaned.

**Elevator #2:**

"Is it a good dream?" Brass, who had shut his eyes in order to savor the experience before he was either told off or fell to his death, peeked at her through his eyelashes. Not that he needed to open them to know she was there. The contact--which had begun a moment earlier with his light touch on her arm--was now manifested as full-body contact. As much as he was enjoying it, he was seriously worried that the extent of how _much would soon be embarrassingly evident._

"Would you slap me if I said yes?" Jim decided that her frank way of speaking must be contagious.

"Would you like it if I did?" At this, his eyes popped open in shock. She was smiling at him with an easy familiarity that ignored the fact that they'd met mere minutes before. He began to relax, another action that shocked him on the inside--it wasn't like him at all.

"Are we playing the question game?" he asked her with a genuine smile. "Because if we are, you'll probably lose--I have more practice." She rewarded him with a beaming smile of her own.

"You already lost, Officer," she observed. Brass colored a little, and shook his head in admiration.

"Not many people are brave enough to point out when I'm wrong," he said, honestly.

"Are you often wrong?" She asked this as though they knew each other well, when in actuality, he didn't even know her name.

**Elevator #3:**

The five people in this elevator had a little more idea of what was going on than the crew from CSI. Their trial had been held down the hall from the celebrity trial, and each and every one of them had been thankful that yet another day had passed without the press knowing they were there. When the trouble started, however, one man in particular knew that his time may have just run out.

Peter Veccio was _not a part of the mob. When he had been arrested, that was the mantra he'd repeated over and over to the disbelieving cops. At long last, they'd finally believed him--but not after showing him the evidence they had collected against him; evidence that proved that although he wasn't a member of the Vegas Mafia, he had been unknowingly working for them, just the same. Veccio was an accountant. In actuality, it was his assistant that was the criminal, and when Peter had discovered this fact, in the interrogation room at police headquarters, on the night his life changed--he'd agreed to testify against her._

**Elevator #4:**

While Catherine and Nick were in the corner, talking in hushed tones, Warrick was against the wall, testing his boundaries. A slight move of the waist to the left--so far, so good. The same movement to the right caused a sharp pain to course through his body, making him gasp quietly. He made a mental note to definitely avoid similar movement in the future.

Warrick's next movement was a sharp jerk of his waist to the right.

It was involuntary, however--caused by the object in his back right pocket. His cell phone was vibrating. When it started, he also broke his mental note to keep quiet and let Catherine and Nick have a private conversation.

"Holy--Owwwww!!"

The two other people in the room looked over at hearing Warrick's outburst in time to see his whole body jump in surprise and his handsome face grimace in pain.

"What?" Nick, who had just calmed down due in most part to Catherine's soothing voice, was once again a nervous wreck.

"T minus two seconds," Catherine muttered to herself.

"What is it Warrick?!" Nick rushed to his friend's side, concern etched across his features. The other man was reaching an arm back in the direction of his injury, an action that confused Nick. "Your back is bruised, man--don't touch it," he said, clasping Warrick's hand in his to prevent his further hurting himself.

"Pocket," Warrick whispered, clearly in pain. Nick looked down, and laughed.

"'Rick, did you know your ass is vibrating?"

**Elevator #1:**

"Just covering my ass, sir." Hodges said with what sounded suspiciously to Sara like _humor in his voice. '_Well, well,_' Sara thought to herself wryly. '__It seems that miracles do happen.' As the meaning of what she'd just said to herself hit home, the amusement she'd felt slipped away, replaced by a strange sort of sadness. When she was a child, she'd often wished on a star, and a few of those times she'd been delighted to find her wish come true. As she grew older and wiser, Sara realized that they'd been easy wishes to grant--a trip to a favorite vacation area, a dog for Christmas. This knowledge never stopped her from wishing, though. The last wish she'd made on a star had been just after the lab explosion._

She'd wished that she could finally know what Grissom felt about her... felt _for her._

Miracles _did happen, but like the story of the monkey's paw, they didn't always turn out the way you expected them to._

Grissom had been watching Sara when Hodges made his last comment, and what he saw intrigued him. She'd been full of mirth one moment, and deeply saddened the next. _'Damn her!_' The sudden thought surged forward, carrying the anger with it. She just made him so darned uncomfortable! He wished he could just come up to her and say, look--I really like you, but I _can't_ let myself get involved. I'm too vulnerable! It would never work...

"Speaking of how long we'll be in here," Sara said slowly, "don't you think we ought to notify someone about the problem? Or at the very least, tell the others we'll be late coming back to the lab?" Grissom had informed everyone that he wanted to have a short discussion of the day's court proceedings before they all went home for the night. Sara felt her pockets for her cell phone and then remembered she'd left it at home. The whole crew had been together all day, so there wasn't any need to carry it with her. After all, who else called her but her work colleagues?

"Oh right," she said, for the others' benefit. "I left my cell at home." She looked at Hodges, who shrugged.

"Don't look at me," he said. "I hate the things."

"I'll do it," Grissom said, removing the small device from his jacket pocket.

**Elevator #3:**

"Oh, my God," Peter said, looking around at the others in the elevator. His mother, who had come to the trial to provide moral support--she had waited in the judge's chambers for his testimony to end. Just the knowledge of her presence had given him strength, but now... now he feared that she might suffer his same fate. His lawyers--one a personal friend and the other hired by his employer--and the FBI agents that had called him to testify, they were innocents in this matter. If he had spoken this thought aloud, his friend would have told him that he, too, was innocent, but Veccio didn't feel that way. He felt responsible; he felt as though he should have known what had been going on.

"Now, don't jump to conclusions," his lawyer friend Saul Marks said in his deep voice. "It could just be a freak coincidence."

"Don't you think there have been too many of those in this case already?" Peter answered him, the fear evident in his voice.

"Oh, dear," his mother said, quietly. All the men in the room looked over at her, every one of them feeling regret that she'd chosen to take the elevator with them. She didn't deserve...

"Its ok, Mom," Veccio lied.

"Petey, I saw two other elevators with people in them," she said, worriedly. "I sure hope they're all right."

**Elevator #2:**

"Do you often conduct interrogations this close to your..." Brass trailed off, once again feeling out of his element. He couldn't believe she hadn't moved away from him yet.

"Suspect?" she finished for him. The way she said it simply dripped with innuendo, implying that there were many different ways she could have finished his sentence. Brass cleared his throat nervously.

"Do you need a cough drop?" she asked coyly, lifting her lips to display a Vick's between her teeth. Jim's mouth dropped open in shock. He was simply speechless. The fascinating woman lifted a manicured finger to close his mouth, her touch light and gentle. It lingered there for a moment, and they shared an electric moment of eye contact before she moved away, searching in her purse for something. In a moment, she found it.

A cough drop.

**Elevator #4:**

"I _BEG your pardon?" Catherine said, whirling around at Nick's outrageous comment. She caught Nick with his hand buried in Warrick's back pocket, and the unexpected finding had her speechless. Nick's face turned a violent shade of near-purple, and Warrick's whole body shook with laughter._

"Cell phone," Nick squeaked, not sure whether to be deeply embarrassed or laugh his ass off. So to speak. He held out his hand, the object still twitching.

"Well, are you going to answer it?" Warrick, who'd resumed his position against the wall, shrugged his still shaking shoulders. He was laughing too hard to form words yet.

"Don't look at me, Catherine," Nick said, making a face. "This thing was in his back pocket!"

"Oh, give me that!" she said in exasperation. "A bunch of babies," she muttered.

"Catherine?" It was Grissom.

"Yes, it's me--Warrick is," she paused, looking over at the giggling men in the corner. "Indisposed," she quipped.

"I see." Grissom said. "You wouldn't happen to be-"

"Stuck in an elevator?" she finished for him. "As a matter of fact, yes, we are."

"Who's we?"

"Me, Warrick, and Nick the proctologist." she answered him with a grin.

TBC...


End file.
